Cassidy Kane's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Cassidy Kane had the forger tied to a post inside the Copperline Saloon, and she still didn't know the one thing she'd bled for. The rope held. The man wept. But the man who'd cut the scar under her hat had ridden out of Duskfall days ago, and this forger was the last mouth that might say where. She pressed her thumb to the silver at her belt, cut from another man who ran. "South, north, a name," she said. "Give me one and I leave you your teeth." The forger only shook. He knew paper, not roads. Cassidy felt the trail going cold in her hands. The swinging doors creaked. A short, bearded man came in with a coiled rope at his hip and dust to his knees. He looked at the bound forger, then at Cassidy, and did not reach for a gun. "You're choking a well that's already dry," Cole Ryder said. "A rope brings a man back. Fear just makes him lie faster." "And you are?" "Tracking cattle thieves three days now. Nine head from an old rancher." He nodded at the forger. "I know his kind. He'll trade before he'll suffer. You just asked wrong." Before Cassidy could answer, a woman stepped through the doors behind him. Black hair, amber eyes, a revolver already in her hand. Cassidy's own hand dropped to her belt. "Easy," the woman said. Quiet, flat. "I want the same man you do. He rode through here yesterday." Cassidy Tempest holstered the gun to show her hands. "He stole my father's deed. Forty acres. Last thing I own from a dead man." She looked at the scar's edge under Cassidy Kane's hat and understood without asking. "He hurt you too." Two women hunting one thief. Cassidy Kane weighed it fast. "You saw which way he went." "West. Toward the mesas." Tempest got quieter. "Alone, he's faster than either of us. Together, he's caught." Cole knelt by the forger and loosened the rope one turn. "Tell the truth and I'll take you to a jail, not a grave." The forger gasped and talked. He'd sold the scarred man a fresh horse and a false name to ride under. West. A town past the black mesas. It matched Tempest's word. The trail was warm again. Cassidy Kane hauled the forger up. She had what her father needed and what she needed both. "Cole takes him in. We ride west." "We," Tempest said. Not a question. They led the forger out into the failing light. Two horses waited at the rail. But as Cassidy swung up, she saw dust rising on the west road already, moving away, fast. He hadn't stopped in that town. He was still running, and he'd gotten a full day ahead while she wrung a weeping man dry. The chase was on now, and she was behind.